


John

by The Spike (spike21)



Series: The Gospels [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spike21/pseuds/The%20Spike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Krycek spends a night at Lone Gunman HQ.   Set in the never-neverland between Apocrypha and Tunguska</p>
            </blockquote>





	John

Mulder brought his prisoner to the Lone Gunmen around nine, shoving the leather-jacketed hood ahead of him through the door at gunpoint. The prisoner skidded a little on the hardwood floor, but kept his balance. A neat trick, Byers thought, for a man with both hands cuffed behind his back. He didn't say anything, though, because at that moment the prisoner looked up and met Byers' gaze.

//... such *pretty* green eyes...//

The thought was a whisper of distant song but before he could wonder at it Mulder spoke:

"This is Alex Krycek," Mulder said. He jerked Krycek around and propelled him back and down -- hard -- into Langly's chair. "He's a liar and a traitor and a whore and I'll be back to get him in the morning so he can testify to that."

The words -- the name -- all sounded like it tasted bitter in Mulder's mouth. Byers didn't think he'd ever seen Mulder like this with anyone. Hating. Burning with hate. There was violence in the way he touched the man. Violence in the way he unlocked, twisted and relocked the cuffs, securing Krycek to the center-post of the secretary chair. In the way he yanked Krycek's belt from his pants and used it to tie one foot to the chairleg. Still more violence waited, barely restrained, in the white-knuckled hand that held the gun butt just above Krycek's left temple.

And through it all the prisoner sat passive. Pliant. Smirking. Daring Mulder to...what? What *was* that look?

"So what do you want us to do with him?" Langly chimed in, saving Byers from his thought.

"Yeah," Frohike added. "You want us to interrogate him?"

Mulder didn't answer. For a moment, Byers felt that Mulder and Krycek were alone together in some tiny, private universe of hate; gazes locked, something almost tangible in the air between them.

"Just stay the fuck clear of him," Mulder said, finally. He straightened and slipped his gun back into its holster, never for one moment breaking eye contact. "If he gives you any trouble, call AD Skinner at the FBI."

"Don't worry about that," Frohike said. eagerly. "We'll stand watches. Round the clock surveillance."

"Whatever," said Mulder. "As long as he's here when I come for him in the morning." Krycek made a silent, smirking laugh that earned him a menacing twitch of Mulder's gun hand. And Byers could see the fight it took for Mulder to break off the war of stares.

But he did and then he was gone and the three of them were left staring at the man he'd left behind. Who was, for the moment glaring at the closed apartment door, not deigning to look at his erstwhile keepers. Byers, on the other hand, couldn't seem to look away.

Alex Krycek.

A big boy, Byers thought. Byers had heard the description, seen the grainy surveillance photos. None of them had come close to indicating the sheer physical presence of the man. Something about Krycek just sang out DANGER and DO NOT CROSS. And yet, like a tourist atop a cliff, Byers found himself drawn to the perilous edge.

"I want first watch," said Frohike. "So the rest of you clear out and leave him to me." There was a trollish gleam in his eyes but the tough-guy impression wasn't fooling anybody.

"Dibs on second," said Langly. "There's back to back Corman flicks at midnight on the skiffy channel." They both looked at Byers expectantly.

Heat rising in his face and Byers could only shrug.

"Third's fine with me," he said, noncommittal as could be, careful not to fall into the range of those

//pretty pretty pretty//

green eyes.

"I guess I'll go and get some sleep," he stammered and, not waiting to see if anyone was listening, he bustled himself back to his bathroom and threw himself with more passion than usual into his bedtime routine.

****************

It had been a mistake to shower though. Not that showers woke him up particularly, just that there was something about being fresh-washed and clean, skin tingling from the sharp hot spray, nose tickled with the spicy scent of soap that made John hyper-aware of his body. Made him -- admit it, John -- horny as a tomcat. And the newly changed bed-linen didn't help. It had been the one great shame of his teenage years -- not simply the need to masturbate, but this impulse to do so into crisp, clean sheets.

God, even thinking about it made him hopelessly aware of his penis, taut and silky, chafing beneath the smooth cotton of his pajamas.

Of course he'd outgrown that weakness now. Had 'mastered it, so to speak. Master of his own lonely domain. And where had that come from? Some TV show, no doubt. Langly had the bloody thing on all the time and pop-culture seeped into his subconscious like spilled cola.

He hated it when his mind ran on and on like this, sleep a million miles away and nothing to do but suffer. Usually, if he couldn't sleep he'd put the time to good use -- tidy the files, update the mailing list, surf the milnet for leads. There was no shortage of work to be done. Except it was all out there in the living room where Frohike was standing watch over

//dark cap of hair, smirk of a mouth, long bow of a neck...//

Stop! But it was too late. He realized he'd been running his hands up and down the sides of his thighs, cotton pajamas gently abrading him with the motion.

What was he thinking? He didn't know, but it felt just like that first moment he saw Suzanne Modeski. Like he was some idiotic moth that had no destiny other than to spiral in toward that human equivalent of a flame. Except, of course, this was no Suzanne Modeski. This was a man. A bad man: Mulder's enemy. What had Mulder called him? Liar. Traitor. Whore...

//...on his knees in front of you, pretty eyes begging, soft mouth around your...//

Aagh! Byers tore back the blankets and sat up. Ten thirteen p.m. and he was never going to sleep again, was he? He opened his bedroom door cautiously. There were lights on down the hall and he could make out Frohike's low rumble from the living room. He didn't go there though. Headed to the bathroom instead where he took another shower: long this time and very, very cold.

It helped a little, as did his old teenage diversion of cataloguing everything in his head into an enormous bank of imaginary file drawers. Even so, he tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, and never realized he'd dozed off until Langly came hammering at his door.

Byers opened his eyes, instantly awake as Langly's head poked in through the open door -- rayed with ambient light:

"Hey, Betty," Langly stage-whispered. "Your turn to babysit Li'l Reggie." Byers looked at his clock: three oh two a.m.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. Langly shrugged.

"He snores," he said. "Had to use the headphones or I'd have missed the flick. I left 'em out for you."

"Thanks," said Byers absently. "I-I'll be out in a minute." Langly shrugged again and closed the door.

Byers peeled the covers back slowly. Now he was tired. The thought that the prisoner was sleeping filled him with an odd, fleeting disappointment.

You should be relieved, he told himself sternly. But he knew it was no good; he was half-hard again already. He slipped his bathrobe on against the chill, slipped his feet into the woolly, leather-soled slippers and headed to the bathroom to splash more cold water on his face and brush his teeth.

****************

All the lights were off in the house, but the blue-gray flicker of the silent TV filled the living room with odd highlights and shadows. The prisoner was still in Langly's chair; still bound. His position was awkward though: His head had fallen back in sleep, leaving his

//...sulky...//

mouth slightly open. His hips had slid forward on the seat so that his right knee seemed strained to tautness against the pull of the leather belt at his ankle; his left leg was stretched straight out in front of him. The resulting sprawl accentuated the bulge in the tight black jeans. Byers felt himself stir again, penis dully restrained under the weight of cotton and flannel. So close... Another step or two and he'd be close enough to feel the other man's heat. Or could he feel it already? His skin felt flushed; heart hammering soft and fast against his ribs.

Unbelievable. Like some kind of virus that hit him every five years -- wham bam gotta have an enemy of the US government. Suzanne Modeski... Alex Krycek...

I'm losing my mind, Byers thought. He cinched his robe tight enough to hurt and forcibly turned away, planted himself at his own desk.

He booted up the cobbled UNIX machine. Whine, rattle and hum and the monitor degaussed with a crackle. Byers keyed in his passwords and fired up the modem. No pretty pictures on his screen, but Lynx was good enough to surf the closed, unpretty networks where the real cyberwar raged unmitigated by triple-x sites and lurid binaries.

Here the only enticements were the ghosts of ghostly data trails -- trashed memos, unsent letters. The detritus of secrets, waiting to be found. Byers felt at home in this element. He didn't consider himself a hacker, not by any means. More like some kind of archeologist of apocrypha, digging up potsherds of information, archiving them, cataloguing them until he had enough to reconstitute them in their original form. Usually he loved this work, loved sitting in the dark with only the tap-tapping of his fingers on the keyboard for music; the scrolling of the gray-on-black text, the only movement in the room. But tonight the presence of the sleeping captive kept him restless, distracted.

Not that Krycek was a noisy sleeper. Langly had been wrong about that. Well, not entirely wrong. Krycek didn't snore so much as moan softly and mutter under his breath; shrug restlessly against his restraints as though the content of his dreams gave him unease but required him to stay quiet about it all the same.

Still, Byers knew, he could tune the sound out all he wanted, put the stupid headphones on and turn the volume up until his brains liquefied and he'd still be aware of that lean

//carnal//

presence across the room. Nevertheless he persisted, forced his concentration into the phosphor gray world behind the monitor enough that he managed to trace a correspondence between two university professors complaining about arbitrary budget crackdowns back to what seemed to be its progenesis -- the extra-departmental hiring of a man known to the Gunmen as probable black ops. The interesting questions, of course, were who had hired him and why. Byers was just about to tackle these, when out of the darkness, a sleep-roughened voice said:

"Hey..."

Startled, Byers jumped a comical three inches off his chair. He came down hard on his ass and his dignity, looked around sharply. But no one was laughing.

Krycek was looking at him, eyes glittery in the TV light, face shiny with sweat. Byers swallowed the hammering lump that had leapt into his throat, coaxed his voice up to where he could use it.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Krycek. "I've gotta take a piss." He sounded slightly breathless, as if he'd been running. Byers heart sank. And what the --hell -- was he supposed to do about *that*!

"I can't untie you." Krycek bit his lip, shifted painfully.

"Fucking sadists..." Byers stiffened -- at the profanity and the implication. Of course Frohike, playing at interrogator, wouldn't have let him go. And Langly wouldn't have heard him through the headphones if he'd yodeled. And now his own inertia... Krycek was right: they'd been torturing him.

"Hang on," he said, pushing away from the computer with sudden determination. "I'll get a bucket."

****************

The bucket was full of -- something -- so he ended up using a clean plastic ice-cream tub he'd rescued from the recycling bin. Momentary awkwardness as he positioned himself between Krycek's legs, reached for the top button of the jeans.

"Sorry," he said and "sorry" again as he fumbled it open and pulled the zipper down. Mild shock to find no underwear, just crisp black curls under his fingers and Krycek sucked air through clenched teeth so he apologized again as he fished for Krycek's penis, eased it out, positioned it over the thin edge of the tub.

"Hold it," Krycek husked sharply. Honest to goodness butterflies in his stomach, but Byers did what he was told. Amazed. Almost...giddy. He'd never held another man's penis in his hand. It felt hot. Heavy. Silkier than his own and it shivered in his hand like a firehose as Krycek let go.

Piss hit the ice cream tub like rain on a tin roof. Byers glanced up at Krycek, but the prisoner

//...liar, traitor, whore...//

had his eyes closed, face turned away. The stream went on for an impressively long time. Long enough for Byers to worry that the tub wasn't going to be big enough. But eventually it slowed to a trickle and spurt and stopped.

"Shake it," Krycek said, before he could let go, put the heavy tub down. He did his best, wondering if it was too light, too hard, too many times... He looked up again and met those

//...oh my...//

eyes. Krycek was watching him -- boldly, immodestly taking in Byers' hand around his penis. Quirking a knowing smile. Byers blushed, feeling as though he'd been caught at something naughty.

"I'll, uh, be right back," he stammered, stupidly. Then realized that he was still holding

//thickening//

flesh in his hand. He dropped it like a hot coal, stood gracelessly.

Carefully he carried the sloshing plastic tub to the bathroom, trying not to think of that hot swell of flesh against his palm; not to be aware of the sharp juniper tang of the other man's urine. He should, he knew, be disgusted. Uninterested at the very least.

It would be perverse in the extreme to be anything else.

He shook his head as he emptied the bucket into the toilet, flushed, rinsed the plastic tub in the bathtub, poured in a little bleach to soak.

But standing at the sink to wash his hands he couldn't help catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, cheeks flushed as a schoolboy's, eyes bright.

//So..? Are you?//

He wasn't even really sure what he meant, but his reflection seemed to understand. His eyes twinkled back at him in the mirror and his mouth curled up in a wicked little smile he'd never seen on himself before.

Maybe, it seemed to say. Just...maybe...

Puzzled but oddly pleased, Byers snapped off the light and headed back to the living room.

****************

The room was still flickering darkness, Krycek still sprawled within his bondage as John had left him. Well, not exactly as he'd left him: Krycek was fully awake now, eyes heavy-lidded, lips moist -- half-erect penis lolling against his thigh. Slow, indolent swivel of the chair and

//whore//

lust caught fire in Byers' veins with a nearly audible 'whump' like gasoline igniting. It left him breathless. Trembling.

"Come here," Krycek said. Low, breathy husk of a voice and John took a tentative step toward him.

"Closer," Krycek insisted. John stepped closer. He was close enough now that he could smell the other man's sweat, the musky perfume of his sex. Like Suzanne Modeski's perfume, it intoxicated him, made his head reel. The bulge under his robe was clearly defined; Krycek couldn't possibly miss it.

"Show me," Krycek said. And this was crazy. Crazy. But John's fingers were fumbling the belt of his robe open; struggling to undo the button fly of his pajamas. Success and the thin cotton slid down his legs, pooled at his ankles. His erection was an embossment in the white cotton of his Y-fronts. His knees were shaking.

Krycek had swiveled the seat slightly away so that he was looking up at John across his shoulder.

//So beautiful...//

John reached out, ran two fingers along the lean curve of jaw. Long lashes fluttered, swept up as if the touch puzzled him. Lips parted...

//liar, traitor, whore//

He slid his hand around the back of Krycek's neck, pulled his head forward.

Krycek leaned in willingly, pressed his lips to the head of John's penis --no, his *cock* -- and sucked gently through the cotton.

The contact was ... electric. John found himself gasping, up on his toes, staring at the ceiling. His hand cradling the back of Krycek's skull, arm trembling, was the only thing between him and a comic pratfall flat on his back on the floor. That and Krycek's mouth -- breathing hot and cold through the soaked cotton, nibbling at the head, worrying the shaft gently with his teeth, nuzzling into John's aching groin.

John found he was making little breathy sounds into the air. Whimpering. Wanting suddenly to be naked, to touch flesh to flesh. With his free hand he yanked at his briefs, shrugging off his robe at the same time. Momentary confusion as he pulled his pajama top over his head and then he was gloriously, blessedly naked and pressing his sex against Krycek's lips, feeling them part to let him slide into that hot, soft, slick hole of a

//whore's//

mouth.

Krycek took him deep -- or let himself be taken -- as John wrapped both hands around that silky skull, shaking in an effort not to grasp like a drowning swimmer as he felt his center of balance shift and slide into the suddenly heavy weight of his cockhead.

He pistoned clumsily once, twice, again and then unexpectedly found a delicate ratcheting rhythm, each modest thrust winding a glowing wire of pleasure around the capacitor of his spine until it seemed like current was running through his veins instead of blood, building a vast charge of pure scalding lust in his balls and he wondered, crazily whether he was going to cum in a welter of magnesium sparks and liquid metal.

And he looked down at Krycek, fearless, shameless mouth filled with him, eyes gazing -- enraptured, full of wild desire -- wanting it, wanting *him* and, oh god he *was* coming, or dying or something... realized with dim and helpless horror that he was wailing:

"Aah...aah...aah," loud enough to wake the dead but it was too late and there was nothing he could do about it anyway but ride the lightening bolt as it flick-flick-flickered between the earth and the sky, a hundred million volts of blinding pleasure at a time.

Afterwards, still breathless, he excused himself to the bathroom. He listened carefully as he passed Frohike's and Langly's doors but apparently the dead were sleeping soundly tonight because nothing stirred there.

He quickly threw a little water on his face in the bathroom, wet a cloth with warm water which he brought to the living room. Crouching between Krycek's legs, he swabbed gently at Krycek's messy face, smiling sheepishly as he traced runnels of cum down under the collar of the man's T-shirt.

"Sorry," he said, blushing in the dark. "It's been a while."

"Yeah?" Krycek asked, vaguely. He seemed distracted, twitching away from the washcloth like a boy avoiding his mother's hankie, not quite meeting John's eyes. A slight frown creased the bridge of his nose. On impulse, John leaned in and kissed him there.

Krycek looked up at him sharply, not angry but

//...surprised?//

Puzzled, maybe, like he was working something out. He tilted his head slightly, cautiously proffering his cheek -- like he had to be able to take it back at any time and say he never had. John kissed him there too, feeling the grate of stubble under his lips. He kissed the corner of Krycek's left eye. Tasted salt there and, not lifting his lips from the skin, skimmed over to run his tongue around the tender whorl of his ear.

Krycek breathed in softly, but audibly. He hadn't moved, was holding himself rigid enough to tremble under the touch. But he didn't pull away and he didn't tell John to stop.

So John didn't stop. He still felt loose-limbed and light-headed and it felt so *good*. He turned his own head to the side and leaned in again to steal a kiss from Krycek's open mouth. Tasted himself there and felt that spark, amazingly, rekindle heat between his thighs.

"Wow..." he breathed into Krycek's mouth. Giddy, he followed the word with the tip of his tongue and Krycek seemed to catch the fire there too because he gasped, leaned into the kiss, returning it like a thirsty man drinking wine.

John dropped the washcloth, slid both hands around the base of Krycek's skull. Leaned in close. Heat. There was heat between them and John could feel the faint pressure of Krycek's erect cock against his belly. Slowly he broke the kiss but not the contact, mouthing his way down Krycek's jaw, his throat -- another gasp -- the collar of his shirt. He sat back then, just far enough to pull up the T-shirt, expose the sparse hair, blunt pecs, dark coins of nipple.

His mouth went there first, reveling in the tiny erection he raised, the shivering contraction of muscle beneath his tongue. Tender bite and another just below and Krycek whispered:

"Oh..."

John was way ahead of him.

Oh, yes...

Here. Now. Down on his knees between Krycek's muscular legs -- one bound; the other bent, foot on the floor for leverage. He rested his hands lightly on the denimed thighs, leaned into it, utterly shameless and nuzzled the denim-framed V of Krycek's groin. The hot satin weight of Krycek's cock brushed his ear, rested on the soft hair of his bearded cheek. Nosing the warm flesh he breathed deep, exhaled slow and hot into the hollow of groin and hip through his open mouth.

The imprisoned man under his mouth made a helpless, broken sound; arched up against his face.

Byers glanced up sharply. Alarmed. Delighted.

"Jesus..." Krycek whispered. John half expected another command. =Take it. Suck it. Do it.= But Alex just looked at him, frowning slightly, his expression not quite expectation, not quite hope. Just....

//wanting//

John shuddered. Desire surged again at the thought of what he was going to do to this man -- of what he was about to do, period. He looked down again at the cock bobbing slightly, inches before his eyes.

Nice cock. Smooth, blunt-headed, curved like the ivory handle of a knife. The slit glistened with a tiny diamond of pre-ejaculate.

John leaned toward it, pressed his tongue into the shine. Sharp gasp from above, but now he took his time. The fluid tasted salty. Like tears. Felt slippery under his tongue. He followed his tongue down, pressed his lips against the head. Springy flesh jerked insistently against his lips, but John seemed to have found a slow, balletic rhythm and would not be rushed. Not in this. This tasting. This communion of tongue and stranger's flesh. The cock thrummed against his lips, seemed to spread wave after sizzling dizzy wave of lust through him. He could feel it in his own cock. And God he loved the feel of that word in his mind, the way it spiked arcs of want directly to his groin.

He opened his mouth slightly, let the head slip past his lips. Sucked gently.

"Ahh..." Krycek sounded quietly anguished. Byers could feel the trapped legs tremble under his palms. He flattened his tongue, rasped it on the underside. Swirled it around the head. Sucked again, less gently, and earned another raw breath.

The head was slippery all over now, his mouth slick with pre-cum and his own saliva. He tilted his head farther forward, then opened to engulf the shaft -- impaling himself in brutal slow motion on that stake of flesh. Exquisite sensation. He felt the cockhead slide past his teeth, bump along the ridged roof of his mouth, skid against the soft flesh of his palate. It slid farther still down into the slick shaft of his throat and he would have taken it all the way but too deep and the tender flesh flinched at the intrusion, gathered itself to make him cough and he had to pull back. He tried again. Same result. The sudden hindrance shook him, threatened to dissipate his confidence. Indecisive, he held the weight of Krycek's cock against his tongue and wondered if life would be worth living if he had to back out now.

But if Krycek had noticed that the play had changed he gave no sign, only surged up into John's loose mouth as far as his restraints would allow. Wanting it. Like he himself had wanted it. Hard and fast and shameless.

John felt the wicked smile curl the corner of his mouth again and sucked Krycek in hard...

"Aah!"

...fucked his slick mouth up and down along the shaft...

"ohh...ohh...ohh..."

...slowing on the downstroke of each thrust to drive the round, blunt head deeper into his own throat.

"Oh yeah," Krycek breathed and then, deeper, rougher: "Sw-swallow it." The stammer took the edge off the command, but not its effect. John felt the stutter of words like the crackle of a Gauss generator prickling his flesh. He couldn't help it, couldn't stop the long, low moan that slipped out around the edges of the cock in his mouth.

And like the perfect Newtonian machine they'd become, the moan sparked a thrust and a groan made him swallow and he swallowed again and suddenly the cock wedged down deep into his throat and he was there. The sudden mental image of what he must look like, mouth stretched and spitted around the wide base of the cock, nose crushed against the tight pubic curls...

He groaned at the wild flare of pleasure the image gave him and the cock in his throat seemed to swell...and

//Oh god, he's going to come in my mouth //

and he wanted it, wanted the knowledge of it, the taste of it to take back to his crisp, clean linen every night from now on and...

Krycek made a raw and strangled sound, bucked once, twice, hard enough to lift his hips off the seat and then he was there too -- filling John's mouth. For a moment John had a handle on it, swallowing and swallowing, and then slick pearlescence overflowed the vessel of his mouth; backing up into his sinuses and running down his chin to drip from his beard.

Reluctantly John pulled himself off the pulsing shaft. He raised his head, let the cock slip from his mouth -- surprised by the faint, clean aftertaste

//Bleach? Almonds?//

on his tongue.

Uncoupled, they fell away from each other. Krycek sank back into the chair, breathing hard and shaky; John sat back on his tingling heels, realizing for the first time that his legs had fallen asleep. He uncurled his legs, sat instead, swiping at his lips and chin with his hand.

After a while, Krycek looked back down at him. Chuckled -- a brief, breathy sound that came across as shyness.

"You surprised me," he said. John found himself smiling wryly back.

"Surprised *you*?"

They sat there for a minute, clothes awry; grinning at one another like a couple of peaceable maniacs. Then John started to feel the cold. He retrieved the washcloth, hobbling on pins and needles feet back to the bathroom to rinse and warm it.

He cleaned up Krycek and himself at the same time, tucking Krycek tenderly back into his jeans, rearranging shirt and hair so he looked less like he'd been ravished. There was still a little bit of the tarnished angel shine left on him, though. It seemed to be part of his essential nature. John started to dress, then stopped and took off the cotton briefs before putting his pajamas back on. He tucked the briefs in the pocket of the robe.

He realized suddenly that he was ravenous, dry as dust.

"You want something to drink?" he asked Krycek. "Something to eat?" Krycek started to speak, then met John's eyes. The look on his face was so odd John couldn't figure it out. It looked like disbelief. It looked like pain.

"What's wrong?" John asked. But Krycek just smiled an odd little half-smile, shook his head as if to banish unwelcome thoughts.

"Nothing," he said. "That's just... " He shook his head again. Shrugged. "Just...thanks."

John shrugged back to make light of something that seemed too heavy for their fragile bond to bear and, although he understood it wasn't really simple at all, said simply:

"You're welcome." He went to the kitchen, hunted a bit and came back with two juice boxes and a banana, which they shared, grinning and rolling their eyes at the absurd symbolic irony of it.

Then they just sat quiet for a while. John turned off the TV and they could see the sky was graying into dawn and it seemed to John there should be something more between them than there was. But just when he'd worked up the courage to say something, anything about anything at all, there came implacable knocking at the door.

He turned to look, but Krycek's face was set back into that cool, angry smirk. More than a little frightening, but he knew it wasn't meant for him.

John rose to get the door, then stopped, leaned down.

"I hope--" he whispered.

"Don't," Krycek said, flatly. John nodded. He understood.

"Okay," he said, but then, shrugging, vaguely panicked at the thought of opportunities foregone: "I just...I'm John. My name is John."

"What?"

For a moment the cool smirk slipped and John was looking into wry disbelief. Then Krycek made a sound; a stifled snort of laughter that surprised John with its naturalness; baffled him as to its cause.

"It had to be," Krycek muttered, shaking his head as though it hurt. "It just fucking had to be..."

Caught off guard, John smiled back awkwardly, wishing Krycek would let him in on the joke. He almost asked, but Mulder was pounding louder now and already the hard, ironic smirk was setting around the edges of Krycek's mouth. And anyway John sort of understood it wasn't really a joke that could be shared... And then all there was time for was one last quick, stolen ache of a kiss and then neither of them was laughing and John straightened his robe and went to answer the door.

=END=

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note, 1998: I am very grateful to superbetas Te and Nonie for their kindness, suggestions and corrections. Look guys: it's its it's its --Spike learn good, huh? Oh, and as to the parts that still don't look right -- those are all mine, folks.
> 
> Author's note, 2012: I'm scared to re-read this, but I can guess that I mention krycek's beautiful green eyes about a zillion times too many and that my use of commas is terrifying.


End file.
